A blog about Northeast energy issues, and in support of nuclear power.

Sunday, September 4, 2016

On Pat MacDonald's TV show about Clean Energy Standards, Grid Payment

I was on Pat MacDonald's show, Vote for Vermont. The motto of her show is "Listening Beyond the Sound Bite." I appeared on her show last year, also. The recent topic was "Life After Vermont Yankee, part 2." We covered a lot of ground, and had a good time!

Our discussion included:

The New York Clean Energy Standards and what they mean

Payments on the grid, and what types of plants get subsidies

Effects of Vermont Yankee closing

Carbon dioxide footprints

My upcoming book

A hearty thank-you to Pat for inviting me on her show, and for all the preparatory work she does before a show. I hope you enjoy watching!

My opinions about payments to gas-fired plants
In my opinion, gas-fired plants get major subsidies, but they call it "capacity payments." Nuclear plants get these also, but capacity payments are a very small portion of the income for nuclear plants. Capacity payments are a major portion of the income for gas-fired plants.

If gas-fired plants had to make their money selling kWh, they couldn't sell kWh as cheaply as they do. If gas plants didn't get capacity payments, but had to make their money selling kWh, nuclear plants would be very competitive, even with currently-low gas prices.